Tag Archives: Jack Rose

When picking a restaurant for your next meal out, why not choose a place where workers haven’t coughed all over your dinner because they’ve been forced to work with the flu?

Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United) and their local branch ROC-DC just released their first annual Diners’ Guide: a Zagat-like booklet that scores national and local restaurants based on how they treat their workers. The guide includes the 150 highest revenue restaurants in America as well as some local spots already working toward better standards for their employees.

Some of the results aren’t exactly shocking (no, Hooters doesn’t lead the industry in fair treatment of their workers). Others may be more of a surprise: Capital Grille, for example, makes it onto a special list of shame for restaurants charged with discrimination and wage theft.

Jack Rose Dining Saloon has been opening in stages, overlooking the seemingly interminable construction at the intersection of 18th Street and Florida Avenue NW. Now that the dust is finally clearing from the brand new sidewalk outside, its long-awaited dinner menu has debuted as well and is being served seven nights a week in the downstairs dining room and bar. The upstairs patio has been in full swing for most of the summer and is due to continue the grilling and swilling through the fall, including a Tiki bar on the back porch that served me up some killer classics two weeks ago when I visited for the official debut of the downstairs menu.

The key visual of Jack Rose is certainly its downstairs dining room’s wall of scotches, bourbons and spirits – 1400 bottles lining the bar in bookcases of booze. Between liquor, wine and beer the catalog of offerings can be a bit staggering, but the elegant room invites relaxed sifting through the menu while sipping some Ardbeg at the long bar, watching bartenders climb up ladders library-style to fetch bottles. Turn a corner at Jack Rose and the atmosphere can instantly change – every space here has its own feel, so give yourself some wandering time before deciding where you’d like to perch for a while.

Upstairs is divided into several sections, including a front balcony overlooking 18th Street off a small lounge bar complete with fireplace, the main open-air deck with a wood-fire grill and bar, and the small back bar that’s slowly turning into a Tiki spot. I started back there and almost never left, as a friend sipped a perfect Painkiller. After watching the moon rise off the back porch with a classic Mai Tai (orgeat syrup? yes please!) it was time to head downstairs and sample some whiskey cocktails from the excellent selection crafted by Rachel Sergi. Continue reading →

Hopefully you haven’t missed it in the Shake Shack, Pinkberry, Luke’s Lobster craze…but Serendipity 3 is now open in Georgetown. There’s no way you haven’t heard of the NY based shop and its signature oversized Frrrozen Hot Chocolate and Foot-Long Hot Dogs, BUT you can also have the President’s Lobster Pasta here, a dish exclusive to DC. For the best opening story and pics head to Revamp.

Power

Can’t wait to see what the Young & Hungry team puts out for its Of Edibles and Eminence: What Makes a Powerful Restaurant? list on June 10th. They write “Beyond the ‘power lunch’ and the often elusive ‘power breakfast,‘ the places where we eat wield influence in a variety of ways. Some restaurants change our behavior. Some change entire neighborhoods.” Send Y&H your suggestions!

Jack Rose

Metrocurean tells us that Jack Rose, the new whiskey bar and restaurant from the team behind Bourbon, could open any day now. So if you’re looking for a place for whiskey, you might want to start walking towards 18th and Florida. It’s about time — we’ve been talking about this place forever!

Zaytinya, Bezu, Pizzeria Orso

In one of my favorite features, Best Bites Blog takes “the pulse of three area restaurants” in The Needle. Zaytinya and Pizzeria Orso do very well…Bezu not so much.

In what I find the best news of the week, Wicked Waffle tells us it’s finally opening up its McPherson Square location — sometime in June to be specific. Think made to order waffles, sandwiches (with waffles as the bread of course), and soup. Can’t wait!

Toast of the Town

Today Zoofari, tomorrow Toast of the Town. You can head to the National Building Museum on Friday for an evening of wines, spirits, beer, music, and the gourmet food. Participating restaurants include Cava Mezze, Art and Soul, Sonoma, Matchbox, and Toki Underground. Buy tickets here. Enjoy!

Seasons 52

WaPo critic Tom Sietsema headed to North Bethesda this week to check out Seasons 52. The best part of the review was actually about the piano man: “An entertainer who desperately needs voice lessons is holding forth in the piano bar the night I come for dinner, but the dining room across from White Flint mall puts me more in mind of Northern California than Northern Bethesda. (Ledgestone walls, abundant natural light and handsome wine displays help.)” Ouch.

Jack Rose

Young & Hungry takes a look at the soon to be open Jack Rose, writing “Beyond the Single Malt: At Jack Rose, Craft Beer Flows Like Scotch.” 2,700 bottles of scotch, really? Wow. You can check out the obviously still a work in process website here. Better bet, try Twitter @JackRoseinDC.

Cafe Atlantico

The easiest place in DC to score a reservation (ha!) is closing. In the saddest recap I’ve ever ready, writer Chris Shott tells us about his proposal at the restaurant. Of course, José Andrés never fails, so I bet the pop-up concept will be a hit, and I hope Atlantico comes back as well.

If you love food as much as I do, then you eagerly track what DC restaurants are opening plus where and when. With this list, we hope to do that work for you, so that all you have to do is head to the new place and try it out!

I included every restaurant I knew of, but I’m obviously not perfect. So please email me at Tricia@welovedc.com or send me a tweet at @SoooDC if I’m missing something. I’m always up for gossip too! This list is your list.

If there’s such a thing as a Capitol Hill watering-hole, Bullfeathers is it. House staffers and lawmakers who have missed this mainstay, can stop worrying because the hangout is reopening on January 24. The new Bullfeathers is now owned by the team behind Stoney’s, Tunnicliff’s Tavern, and Ulah Bistro. It will be fun seeing what trademarks from those restaurants make it over to Bullfeathers.

The popular Korean restaurant did so well in Dupont Circle that is is opening up in City Vista too. Mandu was started by the Lee family — mother Yesoon and children Jean & Danny. They saw many traditional Korean restaurants in the suburbs (hello, Annandale) but none in the District. Mandu means dumpling in Korean, and here you can find beef & pork, shrimp, and vegetable dumplings.

This new upscale restaurant/lounge is expected to open in late January 2011, and we can’t wait for parking in Adams Morgan to get even harder to find. At the site of an old gym, I bet this 2-story and almost six thousand square feet building will be a new hot spot on the “strip.” One of the minds behing this venture is Bill Thomas, also the owner of Bourbon and Breadsoda. The other is Michael Hartzer, who’s worked at Citronelle and IndeBleu. I wonder if the classic cocktail will always be on special.